Time for Joe to go??

[orangeman]

http://www.jeromequinnmedia.com/-blog/Opt-for-Life_96

Listen to Joe at the start of this especially.

He says he shamelessly is using his celebrity to advance the cause of his opt for life campaign.

Joe is going to use whatever power he has as a celebrity to make changes in organ donation and the GAA and whatever other cause(s) he chooses to carry the torch for.

I honesty do not see any problem in him using his status to promote such as cause. In the Gaelic Life yesterday he opening advertised a fund raising cycle for the Michaela Foundation which he is taking part in.

I can also say that I do not think his rant last Saturday was completely premeditated.

I'm not saying there's any problem with it either by the way.

That's what celebs do.

[SkillfulBill]

New to the board but here goes anyway.  Firstly I don't think for one minute that Brollys rant was a spontaneous reaction to the cavanagh foul. I think his attack was premeditated and a cynical attempt to maximise his own publicity.  Had Joe's motivation been truly a concern for the highlighting of cynical play in the GAA then RTE could have compiled a Montague of footage from a wide spread of game's and player's to emphasis his point.  Instead he goes for the most high profile player and managee in the game and like all good journalists he makes it personal to ensure that the story has legs and will therefore maximise his publicity.  Joes motivation has to be questioned in these circumstances.  Is it designed to maximise his own profile to either help support his own personal goals for his charitable work or is it even more cynical in that it is for his own financial gain possibly protecting his own position as a paid analyst and jornalist work. As Joe Kernan has already pointed out he has gained a maximisation in the publicity stakes from his out burst. This is not the first time Joe has had a go. In the 00's he was Tyrones chief cheerleader not because he held its players or manager in any high regard but it made good TV to have spats with Spillane and O'Rourke. Last year in the lead up to the All Ireland final he labelled Mayo as the most cynical team in the country yet a year later the same team of players and manager are now the saviour of traditional football. I can't take him seriously if everything he does and say appears to be designed to court publicity especially when it's at the expense of amateurs like cavanagh harte horan and the whole Tyrone and Mayo teams. He may be kidding the masses but he doesn't kid me.

[screenexile]

When is a dive a dive? Is everyone who goes to ground upon contact trying to con the ref or do they just see it as a way to get out of a tackle and retain possession? What I mean is if a player is running with the ball and a tackle comes in, falling to the ground and getting up again (or passing it off when on the ground) may be the best way to avoid being dispossessed. If the ref doesn't give a free - no problem. If the ref gives a free - problem.

Ah but falling down and pulling the defender on top of you is definitely a dive ... as demonstrated by the master himself last weekend!

[orangeman]

When is a dive a dive? Is everyone who goes to ground upon contact trying to con the ref or do they just see it as a way to get out of a tackle and retain possession? What I mean is if a player is running with the ball and a tackle comes in, falling to the ground and getting up again (or passing it off when on the ground) may be the best way to avoid being dispossessed. If the ref doesn't give a free - no problem. If the ref gives a free - problem.

Ah but falling down and pulling the defender on top of you is definitely a dive ... as demonstrated by the master himself last weekend!

A lot of what are termed the marquee forwards are looking to make deliberate contact with the defender in order to get tangled up.

Brolly's picture of getting a handful of the defender's jersey proves they were at it back then as well.

[BennyHarp]

When is a dive a dive? Is everyone who goes to ground upon contact trying to con the ref or do they just see it as a way to get out of a tackle and retain possession? What I mean is if a player is running with the ball and a tackle comes in, falling to the ground and getting up again (or passing it off when on the ground) may be the best way to avoid being dispossessed. If the ref doesn't give a free - no problem. If the ref gives a free - problem.

Ah but falling down and pulling the defender on top of you is definitely a dive ... as demonstrated by the master himself last weekend!

A lot of what are termed the marquee forwards are looking to make deliberate contact with the defender in order to get tangled up.

Brolly's picture of getting a handful of the defender's jersey proves they were at it back then as well.

Ah lads, in every sport there's ways to gain an advantage and its all part of the game. Do we want to remove all the individuality from the sport and replace it by rule after rule. Defenders tug jerseys, stand on toes, tackle with the fist, tap heels etc. Forwards try to exploit the opportunities they get, if Darren Hughes had tackled with the near hand then Sean wouldn't have had the opportunity to do what he did. He reached in with the far hand and Sean could draw the foul (though it wasn't a booking), it's no more cheating than a defender tugging a jersey on the sly as a forward makes a run. It's all part of the fringes of the game which is never going to be perfect when one man is marking another and trying to get the upper hand. This issue shouldn't be lumped in with the cynical fouling which I agree is a more serious problem.

[SkillfulBill]

Paul Grimley's article in today's Irish News has ratcheted up pressure on Brolly.  Granted Grimely has an axe to grind but I think Joe's publicity stunt is hopefully beginning to backfire on him. I detected some conciliatory tones in the Brolly article in The Gaelic Life trying to portray a sense of spontaneous anger behind his rant. I fully expect a little humility from Joe the next day as he rows back from personal attacks and concentrates on wider issues of gamesmanship and cynicism in the game to secure the impression that this is his motivation and not just a publicity stunt. Joe is shrewd enough to know the GAA public will not stand for individuals using the sport for their own selfish self promotion. To answer the question asked in this thread yes it is time for him to go. It is time RTE binned the sensational sound bite analysis format and start promoting proper game's analysis like they do with hurling.

[orangeman]

Billy Keane in today's indo.



RTE analyst Joe Brolly hasn't lost any of his passion for the game
BILLY KEANE – 10 AUGUST 2013

There was a day when I threw a sheep at Joe Brolly. Or a good bit of a sheep anyway. Definitely the outside of a sheep, which was on the inside of my slippers.


Brolly had a go at Kerry on TV for winning all those soft All-Irelands. All 36 of them. And he was very hard on Paul Galvin at a time when Paul's life was in turmoil.

There was a man who used to come into our bar back in the days when 10-year-olds served strong drink. His name was Billeen and he told us stories of his heroics in the Second World War.

There was one tale about pulling a barge full of wounded soldiers across the English Channel from Dunkirk, with a rope between his teeth. But that is of no relevance whatsoever in the context of Brolly and his rant at Sean Cavanagh on 'The Sunday Game Live' after Sean dived on Monaghan's Conor McManus when he was bearing down on goal.

But what is relevant is that Billeen used to wear horseshoes on the soles of his hard-baked hobnail boots. Keep it to yourself. If word gets out, there won't be a shoemaker left in the country.

Sparks came out of Billeen's heels when he walked. His gait was that of a dressage horse with side steps, shifts, exaggerated lifts and a rhythmic clippity clop when he broke into a trot. I suppose you could say he was a horse of a man.

There was a time when I felt Billeen's boots wouldn't be half hard enough for kicking Brolly's a***.

BORING

Mickey Harte said Brolly was boring. Ah Mickey, stick to the coaching and the motivational speaking. Stuff you're very good at. You'll never make it as a TV critic.

Brolly wasn't boring on the pitch either. He was very fast and classy. A showman who taunted the opposition fans with kisses, but sure it was only a bit of harmless fun.

Boring, no. Dogmatic and wrong, yes. But I'll never throw a shoe at Brolly again. For Brolly is a man of great courage. Joe gave a kidney to a man he knew only fairly well. A man with young kids. For me, that was the day Brolly became Joe.

Yes, he's Joe now. He looks shaken since the operation. Thinner and a little greyer. Tired sometimes, and new care lines are written across his face.

But the donation hasn't killed his passion. Ah, but Joe lost it completely on TV. He was in a fit he couldn't stop. Like many of us fanatics who are hopelessly in thrall to the game of Gaelic football. Joe Brolly values the game he loves so well. Understands the ethics and the obligations of players and managers alike towards our young people and society. Joe cares.

There is an uncomfortableness when someone tells the truth. You feel for the person exposed but know at the same time that what must be said, must be said. For the greater good.

So it was with Sean Cavanagh, who on song is the best player in the country. That he should rugby tackle a player going through to score a goal is morally wrong. Yet we all did it. I did anyway. But that doesn't make it right. You'd have to feel for Sean, though. He is not a dirty player. Sean was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is a product of what has become the win-at-all-costs mentality.

It was also a spur-of-the-moment thing.

Sean should have been sent off. And that would have been the end of the matter.

The rules are there to be applied. Dangerous play it was. What if McManus had fallen and broke his collarbone, or his head connected with another player's boot? The tackle was from behind so McManus couldn't have been ready to brace himself for the fall. The tackle was more than the simple pulling of a jersey.

Almost definitely a red card would have meant a Monaghan win. Tyrone supporters have had great years. Their superb team won three Sams. Monaghan haven't even been in a semi for decades. Monaghan were badly wronged.

It's more than sport.

Maybe if there were more who made us uncomfortable with truths in this island of zero degrees of separation, we wouldn't be in such a mess. Everyone knows someone. Fine to have a go in, say, England, where you might only run into the object of your accusation maybe once in a lifetime, and the size of the place means it's most unlikely you will meet his mother in the local pub.

'The Sunday Game' full-forward line of Pat Spillane, Colm O'Rourke and Joe Brolly have done our sport and our country a great service by simply telling the truth.

But that's the big picture.

Now Joe went too far with his criticism. It's a northern thing. This telling of the truth and the no holding back is fine, but the line "in so far as he's a man, you can forget about it" was out of order.

Sean comes from the Moy where Loyalist murderers drove off the motorway and shot dead innocent GAA men, just for kicks. His house is only a few yards from the GAA pitch. Men and women fought hard for that field. Their boy deserves more. Sean Cavanagh loves the game and must have spent hours practising. His people will be hurting.

But Brolly – he's Brolly again – had lost it completely by then.

There are times when we take a pull at the reins in this column. Players are young and unpaid. Sometimes you must make allowances for sportsmen, and hold back on the kind of full-on criticism I would unleash in my non-sports column on politicians, for example.

Joe is too hard on individual players as opposed to teams, where the burden can be shared. Personal stuff should be off limits such as a line from Joe referring to Paul Galvin's suitability for his then profession.

Joe has since apologised to Sean for that one line. Courage again from Joe. This time in backing down. And manliness from Sean in accepting the apology. But Joe was right in his main premise. The tackle was just plain wrong and no amount of excuses can justify it.

Would that there were more like him, in this barrel of an island, with no corner to hide in, in these dangerous days for the GAA when ruthless, dishonest managers with no moral values coach the kid out of boys and men.

[Sidney]

if Darren Hughes had tackled with the near hand then Sean wouldn't have had the opportunity to do what he did. He reached in with the far hand and Sean could draw the foul (though it wasn't a booking), it's no more cheating than a defender tugging a jersey on the sly as a forward makes a run.

i) It wasn't a foul.

ii) It was cheating.

[SkillfulBill]

The Billy Keane article is complete horse excrement their is no place for personalised attacks on players and manager's who are amateurs by paid analysts. His excuse that its Brollys northern heritage is at the heart of his direct talking style is laughable. If anything Joes origins should have given him a greater insight in how personalising issues and events can be very dangerous as many people have suffered in the north as a result of intemperate use of language.

[BennyHarp]

if Darren Hughes had tackled with the near hand then Sean wouldn't have had the opportunity to do what he did. He reached in with the far hand and Sean could draw the foul (though it wasn't a booking), it's no more cheating than a defender tugging a jersey on the sly as a forward makes a run.

i) It wasn't a foul.

ii) It was cheating.

I) It was a foul - the ref gave it.

II) it's not cheating

[orangeman]

Vincent Hogan: Joe, are Donegal really that much different to Tyrone?

Joe Brolly has rarely deviated from anything but expressions of awe for Donegal manager Jim McGuinness, but his team must take some responsibility for games like the tempestuous league clash against Tyrone in Omagh, a game where you felt both teams deserved one another
VINCENT HOGAN – 10 AUGUST 2013

Joe Brolly believes that, for his role with 'The Sunday Game' to be authentic, his contributions should be indistinguishable from what you might expect to hear in a public house.


We know this because Joe said so. "Why should TV punditry be any different from the way we discuss the games in the pubs?" he wrote recently. For a man of his legal expertise, this was really quite a question.

The notion that a TV pundit should speak with the same freedoms as, say, someone just mouthing beerily off a high stool suggests an odd interpretation of Joe's responsibilities in front of a TV camera.

If this was the case, perhaps RTE should just shelve all studio discussion and run a live half-time feed from, say, a pub at the bottom of Jones's Road instead.

Now Joe has such a wonderfully sharp mind that, when he speaks, it is often hard to assimilate what is earnest from what is mischievous. No question, he's never lacked the courage of his convictions. Any man who can blow kisses to a Tyrone crowd after scoring an Ulster championship goal against them should certainly never be mistaken for any big sister's blouse.

DEVIL

But, in Joe's eyes, Tyrone seem to have become the devil incarnates of football by recognising that tackling an opponent rugby-style can be profitable in certain circumstances. You might imagine that, until Mickey Harte cottoned on to this fact, the game was the province of a bunch of Rebeccas from Sunnybrook Farm.

Is the rugby tackle any more repugnant than the body check with elbow raised? The 'accidental' foot-trip? Sledging? Kidney punching? The systemic colliding with an opponent after he has released the ball?

Now Tyrone aren't especially easy on the eye, but what precisely does the rugby tackle make them uniquely guilty of?

Earlier this year, their league clash with Donegal in Omagh was an ugly exchange, capped charmlessly by an allegation of spitting at the conclusion. Watching the game, you couldn't help but feel that both teams pretty much deserved one another.

One of the more demoralising aspects to it was Donegal's use of Michael Murphy, arguably the most talented forward in Gaelic football. His primary role seemed to be one of tactical fouling, targeted at stopping Tyrone's backs carrying the ball out of defence. Murphy was gone before half-time, the rightful recipient of two yellow cards.

Yet, Joe Brolly has rarely deviated from anything but expressions of awe for Donegal since their breakthrough under Jim McGuinness.

Labelling their young manager "the Jose Mourinho of Gaelic football", Joe suggested that McGuinness had "entirely redefined the game", despite – as he put it – "the revulsion" generated by their uniquely negative approach to the 2011 All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin.

A basic tenet of Donegal's success in recent years has been their strategy of fouling around the middle third of the field on the basis that it is an area outside the conversion zone of most place-kickers.

To this end, Tyrone found a goalkeeper (Niall Morgan) who, in Joe's words, would "ruthlessly punish" that strategy when the sides clashed in Ulster this year. As it happened, Morgan proved anything but ruthless on the day and, sadly, had his season ended by injury soon after.

No matter, Donegal's victory was lauded by Joe as apt reward for a team that was "focused, relentless and humble. They are unaffected by outside influences. They are – as my son Toirealach put it on Sunday evening when I got home – awesome."

A year ago, Monaghan's Dick Clerkin suggested in a newspaper interview that his county was "not cynical enough" in their pursuit of success. This season, the general recognition of their breakthrough came accompanied by acceptance that Monaghan pretty much answered Dick's call.

Just now, Mayo look the most compelling team in the race for Sam Maguire, primarily because they have adjusted to a game that is profoundly unromantic in personality.

But then Sean Boylan's Meath, Joe Kernan's Armagh or, dare we say, Eamonn Coleman's Derry never played football that could be mistaken for daffodil waving.

And if you've never heard of Mickey 'Ned' O'Sullivan, just go and type 'YouTube' in front of his name to see how genteel Dublin and Kerry were with one another during the gloriously mythologised '70s.

Brolly's eruption made good television last Saturday night and, it is true, triggered a wider debate. But why the anger now? His depiction of Tyrone and Sean Cavanagh as some kind of philosophically isolated community suddenly taking Gaelic football to a dark place doesn't stand up to any serious scrutiny.

That said, it is good that he – at least – apologised to Cavanagh this week. After all, humility in the legal profession isn't something that rises with every dawn.

[Sidney]

if Darren Hughes had tackled with the near hand then Sean wouldn't have had the opportunity to do what he did. He reached in with the far hand and Sean could draw the foul (though it wasn't a booking), it's no more cheating than a defender tugging a jersey on the sly as a forward makes a run.

i) It wasn't a foul.

ii) It was cheating.

I) It was a foul - the ref gave it.

II) it's not cheating

i) Did Hughes successfully tackle the ball in a legal manner? Yes.

ii) Did Cavanagh deliberately drag him down? Yes.

iii) Did Cavanagh deliberately and successfully con the referee? Yes.

iv) Since when is deliberately conning the referee not cheating? It's always been cheating in my book, but clearly some people prefer to turn a blind eye when certain teams and players do it, usually their own. I'd like to think I'm not one of those people.

[Sidney]

It is time RTE binned the sensational sound bite analysis format and start promoting proper game's analysis like they do with hurling.

After the Cork-Kilkenny match when at least three other players apart from Shefflin and probably more should have been sent off - Shane O'Neill for a deliberate strike with the hurley, Michael Fennelly for fighting on the ground for 30 seconds with Lorcain McLoughlin (probably a red card for both players in itself) and a neck high tackle, and Eoin Murphy for deliberate striking with the hurley, Liam Sheedy said "there wasn't a dirty stroke in the game".

There is as much poor and cliched analysis in hurling as there is in football.

[orangeman]

Here's a different Kerry man saying something different altogether -

Time to legalise 'rugby tackle' in Gaelic football, says Walsh

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Seán Walsh believes the legalisation of the tackle made by Seán Cavanagh on Conor McManus on Saturday can be a major step in curbing cynicism and lead to a more free-flowing game.





By John Fogarty
GAA CorrespondentThe former Munster and Kerry chairman is a long-time advocate of the International Rules-style challenge which, when committed, would force the player in possession to release the ball or a free is awarded the other way.

Walsh would like to see tackles such as the controversial one made three days ago permitted and his view was yesterday endorsed by Ireland's 2011 International Rules vice-captain, Ciarán McKeever.

The Armagh defender tweeted: "The rugby tackle should be took in as are main tackle in GAA at least everyone will be clear on what a tackle is."

Walsh said: "What I found in my two years as manager of the International Rules team was the tackle was tidied up. It stopped players bringing the ball into the tackle because they knew they would lose it if they didn't use it.

"It opened up the play completely and the ball moved faster. In training, players adapted to it and got into the habit of using the ball instead of holding onto it for long periods.

"That sort of tackle would increase the amount of kicking and reduce solo runs because players don't want to be caught and either lose the play or concede a free."

The Football Review Committee's (FRC) redefinition of the tackle was backed at March's Congress.

It will read in next year's edition of the rule book as "a skill by which a player may dispossess an opponent or frustrate his objective within the rules of fair play. The tackle is aimed at the ball, not the player.

"The tackler may use his body to confront the opponent but deliberate bodily contact (such as punching, slapping, arm holding, pushing, tripping, jersey pulling or a full frontal charge) is forbidden.

"The only deliberate physical contact can be a fair charge, i.e. shoulder-to-shoulder with at least one foot on the ground. More than one player can tackle the player in possession."

Walsh doesn't believe the rewording goes far enough as much as he was a major supporter of the FRC's black card, which he sees as an advance for Gaelic football but believes more steps can be taken.

"I supported the black card because I believed it was needed. It won't solve all our problems but it's a start, it's definitely a start in the right direction.

"What I found interesting after Saturday was so many inter-county players said they would do the same thing as Seán Cavanagh because it's within the rules in the sense it only merits a yellow card.

"From next year the punishment is much more severe."

Walsh was disappointed at the personal criticism of the Tyrone midfielder following the All-Ireland quarter-final. "I wouldn't be blaming Seán Cavanagh for what he did and I meant that sincerely. He was punished accordingly for his foul and was prepared to take a yellow card. I worked for those two years in the International Rules squad with Seán Cavanagh and there is no finer gentleman and no finer player."

[T Fearon]

Joe praised this morning in Belfast Telegraph by the paper's religious correspendent who describes himself as a "Protestant who enjoys watching top class Gaelic football". You'd wonder why he watches Tyrone then?